IdleNoMore’s Oct7Proclaim made a quick splash

Since July 1, the Idle No More movement (#IdleNoMore as it’s known on Twitter) has been largely absent from news coverage. Current reports quote insiders who note the movement remains strong and active even if social media and traditional don’t necessarily reflect that in the same way last winter did.

Several journalists have checked in with me over the months asking for some updates. They’re largely interested in how the movement is registering with the public. Based on ongoing analysis, my sense is the public has largely turned its focus to other issues after having . Idle No More has struggled to capture and maintain public interest since the movement achieved peak interest on January 11th and began its quick, then steady, decline.

By all accounts, a new core team has been struck and has made significant changes. The movement has reorganized. Its website has been re-launched. A database has been built and populated with 125,000 names of supporters. These are all important and productive steps for any movement.

The first big #IdleNoMore event since July 1 was held this past Monday. It was labelled #Oct7Proclaim and was scheduled to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the British Royal Proclamation by King George III. It was a resurgence that had the attention of the media. More than 50 were planned across Canada and around the world including Croatia, India and Scotland. Some rallies drew several hundred people (roughly 200 rallied at the University of Saskatchewan Bowl) and smaller groups elsewhere (roughly 30 at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau).

On Facebook, 437 people indicated they would attend and 159 would “maybe” attend a rally at the Manitoba Legislature. Reports suggest 200 people participated. This highlights some challenges of Facebook as a tool for “best intentions” that still struggles with good conversion numbers. Organizations need to be creative for a good ratio. On the other hand, 200 people did attend.

Online activity for the the movement and its #Oct7Proclaim campaign spiked for the day, though was decidedly low when compared to the level of online activity enjoyed by the movement beginning December 10, 2012 and increasing steadily, sometimes sharply, for a full month.

The 7,129 Twitter mentions by 2,764 participants (average 2.6 tweets per participant) coincided with a rallies. However, the momentum was weak and activity fell more than 60% the following day and continued to fall to current average levels of roughly 600 tweets per day by those most committed to the cause.

Analysis of Idle No More movement and #Oct7Proclaim online activity performed using Marketwired/Sysomos Heartbeat.

Twitter traffic for October 7 was made up of 64% retweets (amplification). Regular tweets, original content, accounted for 35% of tweets. Conversation, reflected in @replies, was a paltry 2%. Sixty five per cent of participants came and went in a single tweet. More involved participants made up 30% of tweets. The most active accounted for 5% of Twitter mentions.

Besides Twitter, Idle No More and its #Oct7Proclaim attracted 785 Facebook mentions (not including those invisible to public search queries), 439 mentions in online news media sites, 228 mentions on various blog sites, 71 YouTube videos and 15 mentions in online forums for the week of October 6 though 12.